Intellectual Property Laws bad for business 293
mshiltonj writes "The NYTimes has a story called "Report Raises Questions About Fighting Online Piracy" that talks about how the stringent enforcement of current Intellectual Property laws (see: RIAA) may acutally be bad for business. It's the not EFF or FSF saying this, it's professors at Harvard Business School and Cardozo Law School. The professors say, "The ideas of copy-left, or of a more liberal regime of copyright, are receiving wider and wider support, It's no longer a wacky idea cloistered in the ivory tower; it's become a more mainstream idea that we need a different kind of copyright regime to support the wide range of activities in cyberspace." and "Bits are not the same as atoms. We need to reframe the legal discussion to treat the differences of bits and atoms in a more thoughtful way.""
bad for economy too (Score:2, Insightful)
not just that, but they dad for economy too. All the major corporations are moving their operations to overseas, and the only leftover jobs will be for Lawyers and other PR personnel. Which cant be too good.
Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright should always be a balance. Promotion should be allowed, but only on an intimate level with people you know, not the entire world, unless the creator or publisher says it's all right. Region codes on DVDs, encryptions, copy prevention methods, etc., are all just profits and ineffective in what they're named to do.
I love libraries, borrow from friends and let them borrow from me, and will take DVDs over to parties so we can watch movies. Some publishers, studios and organizations will call me a pirate, but I would like to think that I'm a consumer and a citizen of the USA who prefers to share what he rightfully paid for with those who would also enjoy it.
Just my opinion and observations.
then don't complain (Score:4, Insightful)
when [large corp] comes along and just takes your idea to market without giving you a bean, they make billions all the execs get to live in bliss and you can eat dirt out of the sidewalk
sounds fair to me, yeah "do away with copyright ! say already financially secure professors and stock trading buisness tutors"
of course you can just watch [large corp] spend billions on developing widget X then just steal it saving $$$$!
yeah sounds fair to me !!
A>S
ivory tower? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's now being said by the Harvard Business School and Cardozo Law School, you might say that it's no longer just being said by the long-haired hackers, but now it is also coming from the ivory tower.
DMCA aside.. (Score:5, Insightful)
too complex (Score:4, Insightful)
in the end, the free market will decide.
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
what I really think is going way too far is companies deciding who can or cannot be my friend. I have no problem whatsoever with treating everybody as a friend (yes, there are different 'levels' of friend, like all other friends.), and I have no trouble sharing with all my friends.
radical rethinking of IP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Jeff Cagle
Over and over (Score:5, Insightful)
Its good that these reports are coming from schools that might have a louder voice in getting the point through.
When Joe Sixpack buys the CD, there is no ulterior motive behind that buy. He is not thinking about ripping the songs and sharing it for free. The DRM/copy protection/encryption/blah and all other technologies only make the experience of listening to music bittersweet when you put the CD into the player and it refuses to recognize it. And no digital protection is good enough for the Black Hats who would get around it, no matter what.
I will say it one more time. I have bought MORE music after I listen to it online before buying it. ARE YOU LISTENING RIAA?
BR 10 years down the line, I am sure we will all look back and laugh at RIAA tactics.
No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? What a surprising finding. I would never have guessed that the vast majority of people, who happen to be the consumers of copyrighted material, would actually prefer the copy-left concept where that material was available to them free.
All sarcasm aside, people have always preferred free to paying for something but, the creators of the copyrighted material do deserve to make a living off of their work. The RIAA may be going to extremes with draconian practices but, the presently unspoken idea that "music wants to be free" is not justifiable. When I create a work, what ever it may be, I should have the right to determine how and by whom it may be used. The fact that someone else would rather have it for free is not an adequate reason for me to give it away if I choose not to.
Not bad for business... (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a post about how good patents are. On the contrary, it's a post about how patents can be misused or abused to give one company an unfair advantage over its rivals.
I don't know where you draw the line between good patents and bad ones but it seems to me that a patent should at least illustrate a degree of innovation and invention beyond "Let's take this old idea and put it together with that old idea and have ourselves a licence to print money!", which is where we're at now with the USPTO handing out patents to overly-broad, far from unique ideas to anyone who ponies up the relevant filing fees.
RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)
A matter of simple economics (Score:5, Insightful)
The access to the infinitely duplicable material destroys the notion of scarcity of the product itself - whereupon the obvious price for such a product is no more than the cost of transport - usage of an Internet account.
We're seeing the destruction of an entire industry; its old guard will cry foul every step of the way, until the market eventually drags it into this new age. Observe the American car industry in the '70s, or of US Steel.
Re:Academia .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or did you think all free software has been developed by a bunch of teenage hackers?
But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. The creators. The RIAA does not create music - it finds, harvests, markets , controls and charges for music, giving the slightest hint of what it makes (wastes) back to the original artist.
Courtney Love herself said that the average artist would do a lot better working for tips. That's what copylefting music does - it allows the artists to survive very well on tips, not on hoarding. This is the way artists have survived since the dawn of humanity.
Re:then don't complain (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ivory tower? (Score:4, Insightful)
These two schools tend to be on the more liberal side of things and tend to be closer to "long-haired hackers" than a majority of the "ivory tower". What they say doesn't necessairly match what most business believes at all.
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look back, the entire motivation for IP laws was to promote the greater creation of those works.
There doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that the current system of IP laws produces the greatest benefit for the least cost to society.
If not optimized, the laws just preserve some artificial revenue stream protection scheme.
Having invented a patentable idea, I can say that the term of the patent had absolutely nothing to do with my creation of that idea. It might have something to do with how much money the patent is worth to a company that wanted to buy it, but it had nothing to do with the creation of the idea.
In a hypothetical world (Score:0, Insightful)
The equivalent of saying "no more new music for you!"
It'd be funny if it happened, even as a marketing ploy.
Aside from sharing old songs, what would the filesharing masses do?
Re:DMCA aside.. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with the spirit of what I understand you to be saying here, I think it's important to note that a law which is only good when marginally enforced is a lousy law.
I certainly do not expect that framing a better law will be easy, but I think it's clear that settling for ones that are pretty-not-too-bad has largely contributed to the mess we're in right now. The blood, sweat, and tears should go into the framing of appropriate laws, not the decision of whether to enforce them.
Dan
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:4, Insightful)
Music wants to be free is not justifiable. It never was. Although, the tactics are being criticized because there is no alternative provided to the 'buy the whole cd or don't buy it'. I DO NOT want to spend 14/15/16/17 dollars on a CD if there is only a couple of songs that I would like to listen. iTunes is an example that Apple got this sentiment right and its a small step in right direction.
I am not defending people who want the music for free or who are sharing/downloading for free. All I am saying that beating up with a stick without giving an alternative is not right. This is only going to alienate customers and push them to do the wrong thing.
The distribution methods have changed with the P2P technologies and its time to build a business model around it.
ARE YOU READING THIS RIAA???
Re:IPR isnt a problem in itself... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't work. Any big company with significant resources would have little trouble spinning off a subsidiary company with very little net worth whose entire purpose was to hold all the patents and license them and/or hammer competitors with lawsuits. And if you say "any company a big company has controlling interest in" as a caveat to get around this, you run into a catch-22 for small startups: their patents are gone if they get too much investment, but without investment their patents are useless....
Re:then don't complain (Score:5, Insightful)
This is far from the same thing as a company taking work from you when you are not affiliated with them.
Re:wired article (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, yes we certainly see their utility in our lives.
But when you get right down to it, we inherited the ideas. And property laws originated so long ago that we probably can only *guess* at why their originators created them.
So what's my point? My point is that we just conject, not know, why property laws first came into effect.
(And for that matter, there may have been multiple societies that introduced them independently, so there could be multiple, different reasons for introducing them.)
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically the copyright extension lobbyists are killing themselves slowly by stretching out copyright terms longer and longer. Each time they stretch it, the thinner it's importance becomes to the general population who see it as unfair to the common good.
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:4, Insightful)
The added bonus of course is that the good artists get paid and the crap artists have to find something else to do. It's more efficient (in an economic sense) than the current system which can drive sales for groups with no musical talent.
Re:ivory tower? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not bad for business... (Score:5, Insightful)
That was the whole idea behind them. It might be just that a 20 year term of protection is too stringent for things like computer science innovations. However, withness the revolution in textiles when the original Gore patent rant our on Gore-Tex a few years back. Radical improvement in the quality of the 'competeing' fabrics, many of which were simply Teflon-laminate membranes made by someone other than Gore.
You could build an argument that Gore deserved to earn significant revenues for their pioneering work in the textiles field. That's what the patent process is supposed to look like. Since the innovation is clearly documented, at the end of the term, everyone benefits. It's definately a double edged sword.
Patents might have problems, especially when someone is granted a patent for non-novel techniques, or worse, something with demonstrable prior-art. This is when the system starts to break down. Combined with the Bog Business technique of cross licensing you can really lock out the little guys. Those practises are more a problem that the underlying concept.
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If there were no copyright ... (Score:4, Insightful)
My Take (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel that tuning the amount of IP protection for different types of industries is helpful for business. Long-term or indefinite-term copyright just doesn't make sense, especially when the original creator is long gone, or the current owner isn't the original creator. Fifty years should really be the maximum, or should be the maximum if the property has been sold by the original owner (thinking of printed materials here). There are some other issues that need to be addressed with the sale of specific types of rights. One example that comes to mind is that of the works of Philip K. Dick. Hollywood basically gave him the "we'll call you later" line while buying movie rights at bargain-basement prices. Now that he is deceased, we've got three big-budget screen adaptations of his work that raked in the dough. There's also the issue of studios which review a script, reject it, then make a movie based on that script (without proper credit) years later. Occasionally a couple of studios will do this, producing similar movies at about the same time. Weakening IP laws in this situation will only hurt the "little guy" even more.
The area that definitely needs the most tuning is IP with regard to technology. There should be some type of orphan clause, if the creator goes bankrupt (or the author dies), and no one had previously made claim to the IP. I'm thinking primarily about software source code lost in limbo. In specialty sofware areas where there isn't a high profit margin this is a major concern when picking the right package: Will this company still be in business 10 years from now? And, of course, (everyone's favorite) tech patents on methods really need an overhaul. Seven years seems to be a bit to long. We really need a new way of reviewing patents. It's not that all of them are overly broad, but a problem that exists because changing a few key words makes something patentable. The "pausing live broadcast" patent should be tossed. The concept has existed and has been implemented since probably the late 1950s for the purposes of "instant replay" during sporting events. Throwing in the words "digital" and "disc", or the amount of time that can be "shifted" shouldn't have a bearing on the validity of the patent. Likewise, the concept of recording in the background shouldn't be patentable either, even if it uses the buzzword "buffer".
patents are a monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:4, Insightful)
"This is the way artists have survived since the dawn of humanity"
And this is exactly the point. The very concept of coyright goes against thousands of years of humanity copying and using whatever they find useful to better their lives.
While the Greeks did not invent writing, they copied the concept from somewhere else and their society benefitted greatly from it. The Romans used pumps that were invented elsewhere and without which their aquaducts would have been useless.
I believe that every invention and improvement made in the modern era is a direct result of the education and knowledge that our ancestors invented for us. Seriously, sdo you think Bill Gates could have written Windows without all of the work others had done before him? Without the ability to read and write or do complex mathematic calculations if those ideas and principals had been copyrighted throughout all this time? Of course not, we take what knowledge we can and we build upon it. The end result is the result of work done by thousands (if not millions) of individuals throughout time and it took all of our learning and knowledge to get where we are today. IP laws never helped humanity then and they are not helping humanity now.
I believe that people should be compensated for their intellectual work, but IP laws as they are now don't benefit people, they benefit nobody but companies. IMO IP laws are not natural, they do not add to society and they certainly do not encourage the sharing of knowledge which, in turn would increase research times...
Well I'm at work and in a hurry. I'll stop my rant, sorry if it makes no sense. But all we have, we have because of the collective works of humanity - IP laws bastardise the right of the public to learn and research whatever they like which is a fundamental right our ancestors have always had.
John the Kiwi
Not FUD, You're Just On A Different Subject (Score:4, Insightful)
Egads, you people can be really bizarre.
Why is the grandparent FUD? Because you decided to start a different argument? Just because there are jobs NOW - which is what you said - doesn't mean there will be the same types of jobs in the FUTURE - which is what the grandparent said.
No, the grandparent is making a prediction. Perhaps it's a weak one, but you didn't argue that. You didn't argue with the poster at all. In fact, you started a whole different subject. Please, if you're going to try and refute someone's predictions, think through the post before you do it and make sure you're at least talking about the same thing the person you're trying to refute was.
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:4, Insightful)
I whole-heartedly and utterly DISAGREE. This is why we have the stupid ass laws in rural states like "It's illegal to have sex with a dead kitten" or "you may not wash your hand on a Wednesday after sundown."
We don't need MORE laws, we need LESS, but ENFORCEABLE laws. Otherwise, this happens. We have billions of laws and it's up to the whim of the controlling body to decide which one they want to enforce that day.
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've heard arguments like this before and, I have to say, it's one of the weakest one's I've heard used to try to justify copyright infringment.
I think that most *rational* people would agree on a common definition of the term "friend". Additionally, I think most people would agree that someone you've never met, never chatted with, and never had any type of contact with except to trade stuff is *not* a "friend". That is why we have the term "stranger".
When people try to use the argument "I am willing to view/treat anyone as a friend so really when I share my stuff on Kazaa I am sharing with friends" they really don't mean it. Take it to the next level. Since I'm your friend, would you please lend me $5,000? Can I come stay at your house for a few months? Can I borrow your credit card to go buy some computer stuff? I promise, I'll stick to a limit you set. No? Why? I thought we were friends?
Re:bad for economy too (Score:4, Insightful)
In any case, it seems to me that IP laws are "good" for the movie and recording industries in the US, and that is why the US is so hell-bent on enforcing their IP laws on other countries. I think it was Marx that said Capitalism is Imperialism. In my books, IP laws are just another weapon on that front.
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I necessarily agree with the parent, but if you are going to pick an analogy, at least pick one that makes sense.
incentive (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's phrase it a different way:
A person can be supporting his/her self and family OR advancing the Arts and Sciences. The purpose of Copyrights and Patents as put forth in the Constitution is to remove the devilment behind that 'OR' decision. Even if it's not enough incentive to enable and Artist/Scientist/Engineer to make a life wholly supported that way, it's got to be worthwhile, as opposed to putting in a few more hours at a day job.
The other side comes from the phrase, "If I can see farther, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." Patents and Copyrights are SUPPOSED to release that stuff into the Public Domain, so others can use it as a basis for further works. THIS is the single most broken aspect of current IP law, IMHO.
Re:wired article (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In a hypothetical world (Score:5, Insightful)
It'd be funny if it happened, even as a marketing ploy.
You mean it hasn't happened already ?, all i can hear on the big radio stations and tv are "professional kareoke people" aka "manufactured pop" singing a bad cover of a song that another band from 1980 wrote (inspired by a 1970's band) because the record company can't be bothered to nurture real talent because they now deem its too financially "risky" better to go with what we know right ?
now as a result you have the odd phenomonon of "manufactured garage bands" as in bands that are designed to look like "real" bands (like in the pub/club variety) but really they are completly assembled by a marketing team and dont usually write/play their music (meaning covers) or subcontract it out to "real" songwriters all because "real talent" is too risky
so yep im pretty convinced thats it !, you have heard it all, for the rest of your life you are going to listen to basically the same songs from the same 60-90 eras repeaded ad infinitum, until you end up hating that song and can no longer tolerate it, if its a bad song tough shit, it will be played to you regardless until you do like/buy it (if you play something enough for long enough they will like it MTV method)
same goes for movies too, have all the tales really all been told ? i could go on but i won't, looking at the this centuries film output and what they are planning in the future, i don't hold a lot of confidence.
marketing is clever at being stupid
Re:then don't complain (Score:3, Insightful)
My two (euro) cents (Score:5, Insightful)
Things are not always that simple. My own employer recently presented me with a new contract. It included among many other things the three following points:
1) A clause about 'any software/hardware/idea/invention... etc' of mine being the property of the company'. It was so loosely worded that they could theoretically have laid claim to things I 'coded/designed/invented' in my spare time even if this had nothing to do with the business the company is in was likely to cause the company loss of revenue.
2) Forbid me to code in my own time for an Open Source project even if the project is in no way related to the business the company and is completely unlikely to cause them loss of revenue.
3) They also tried to insert what they called a "competition protection" clause in the new contract where they reserrve the right to place an injunction on me, forcing me to remain unemployed for a period of upto 6 months, if I should happen to quit working for them and begin working for somebody they feel is a competitor or if I might be using knowledge obtained in my old job at my new place of work.
All but the third clause were shot down after intense negotiations (read: most of the empoyees staged a small scale mutiny). The third point has been kept in the new contracts but nobody expects it to hold up in court, at least not here in Europe. Although the poor bastard who the company decides to honor by testing that clause on is probably going to have to shell out a small fortune in legal fees to prove them wrong and employees will probably think twice beore signing the new contract. Fortunately I was able to avoid swapping my old contract for the new model.
Now, I will agree that a comany owns what I code/design/invent on company time. I also think that a company is no worse off rewarding employees for valuable innovations in some way. But when the company starts trying to dictate whether or not I can innovate in my own spare time in a way that does not undermine the company I work for I think the company has gone too far.
Re:radical rethinking of IP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My two (euro) cents (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure that they don't realize it. For all the twaddle that is spouted about destroying economic incentives, there is one thing that somehow goes unmentioned (although Eben Moglem did touch on it in his recent speech at Harvard). The core of what's going on with all this (and you can add proprietary software companies to the labels and studios) is perfectly explicable from Economics 101: specifically, microeconomics, which says that in an efficient market, price = marginal cost. (Marginal cost is the incremental cost of adding one unit of output; note this is different from average cost!)
Given today's technology, the marginal cost of producing one more CD or DVD or copy of a program is very close to zero. Also, there is no particular benefit to having the physical object (e.g., a CD) for itself, unlike, for example, a beautifully printed, illustrated book.
So I'm not sure that lack of realization or understanding is the problem -- studios, labels, and software companies may well realize it. They just don't like the answer, because it means their business model is broken beyond repair.
You're thinking like a programmer (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine that Xerox's top management had a clue. They patent everything: Ethernet, laser printers, most of the elements of a GUI, etc. They sue the hell out of anyone copying the tech, while marketing all-in-one solutions for "document management" with immense profit margins. This is what the document industry is doing now, but the tech is available to everyone, so the margins are a lot smaller.
Xerox rakes in sagans of dollars, just like they did when they made the first copier. With a bit of creative lawyering and monopoly power, they can hold the market for a long, long time. The interconnects you talk about are available, but only from Xerox- pay up. Any company infringing in the area gets stomped by Xerox- they have infinite resources to pay legal fees due to 50%+ profit margins, kind of like IBM in its headay.
Sure, the computer we know today is delayed by 10-20 years. The internet boom is just a dream in people's eyes. Big deal- the Xerox bigwigs get as rich as Gates is today. That's all that matters.
Xerox is used today as a case study in business schools as an example of how *not* to handle tech change. They didn't get rich.
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to be be a bitch and point it out, but it works fine in Norway. And I believe that Sweden, Denmark and other socialistic democarcys are doing rather fine as well.
You guys just got to realise socialism is an idea, and a not a totalerian system. Socialism is about that the wealthy/resourcefull in society is obligated to help the less fortunate.
It might not be obvious, but this actually saves society money. Say, for example, if people aren't left to starve (actual, working social security), they won't have to steal or resort to crime in order to survive. And thus, less police is needed. Money saved.
I guess I can go on, but this post is probably offtopic enough allready.
So for a practical (and working) socialistic system, Norway and it's democracy is a good example.
Re:IP is property and downloading is theft. (Score:5, Insightful)
Steal means "to take, and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully; as, to steal the personal goods of another." You haven't stolen anything from the mechanic, but you have breached your contract to pay for his work. You've probably also trespassed in his shop or yard while collecting your vehicle. He can sue, and if the state agrees it will use its monopoly on violence to compel you to pay. He may also be able to press criminal charges for your trespass.
Electricity is an interesting thing if you try to think of it as a physical object, since the act of consuming it actually involves flowing electrons through a device and then back to the producer. Of course I'm no more entitled to use the city's electrons in my cellphone (even if I send them right back) than the city is entitled to go using random stuff in my home - even if they put it back right away.
Electricity makes a bit more sense if you think of it as a service, like auto repair, but the same principles apply. If you're obtaining electricity without the provider's consent, it's probably through trespass, fraud, or similar unlawful means.
Re:radical rethinking of IP? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're absolutely right. However, sloppy journalism is just as bad. A statement like:
it "makes unsubstantiated, misleading, or misinformed statements about copyright law."
needs to be clarified. A competent journalist would ask further, demanding to know which statements are considered unsubstantiated misinformed or misleading. Without clarification this is just an opinion from one source and considering the phrasing of the rest of the comment, probably a biased source.
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's all nice and good until everyone does it, and you discover that your system results in runaway inflation.
Surprisingly enough, despite the absurdity of the analogy, we can compare it back to intellectual property. As less people purchase IP-based products and more people simply "borrow" them from "friends", the incentive for people to spend time, money, and effort on creating new IP goes down.
Re:wired article (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
Companies should allow some latitude with infringing properties of their works
I believe that it shouldn't be a case of companies "allowing some latitude", but the law "allowing some latitude". When companies can selectively prosecute any particular person, they hold something over everybody. Better not criticise their new film, or you might get hit with an infringement suit.
However, I also believe, both as a creator and a reseller of intellectual property, that placing your 300 CD Collection on Kazaa is going way too far as well.
Which CDs? If they are all albums released in, say, the 80s, then I have no problem with that. If they are all CDs you bought this year, then I do have a problem with that.
I disagree with copyright terms that last longer than about two decades, it varies based upon what medium it is. Music, I would say that 12-17 years is fair. Software, I would say that 8-10 years is fair. Films, I would say that 15-20 years is fair.
Would somebody still write a song, if they thought it wouldn't make them any money after 12 years? Of course. The monetary incentive is still there. Would somebody still make a film if it wouldn't make any money after 12 years? Perhaps not, it costs a lot of money to bring a film to market and promote it and so on. Then again, how strong is the market for 12-year-old films? What accounts for most of your film buying - films made before 1992 or films made after 1992?
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
Just make it a fixed amount of time, preferably no more than 30 years (this is, after all, for *copyright* not patents), then it all goes into the public domain.
Yes, I'm well aware of how the record companies would hate to lose some of their classic hits from the 60s and 70s, but I doubt they sell much from there but a small selection of the very best albums and whatnot.
This would also make it MUCH easier to determine when the copyright was over, rather than having to figure out when the author died, figure out if it was a joint work, or a company owned one, etc. Might also allow them to have an unpublished period of five years or something, too, and other bits like that.
But still, making copyright last forever is rediculous. I'm kinda glad that the 'freezing' of Walt Disney was mythical, because I'd hate to see them argue that since he's still "alive" (theoretically, at any rate), his copyright will live as long as he stays frozen... (e.g. forever, because it would cut into profits to bring him back, even if it were thought possible to in the far future...)
While we're at it, ditch software & business process patents entirely, make normal ones a bit more narrow, and possibly cut the time on them a bit.
One other thing we need to address, though, is the "IP vampire" companies with no actual products who buy up "IP" from dead companies and use it to extort normal companies, making them the living dead of the business world, since they can't be stopped with defensive patents... I'd like to think that open source/free software ideals can help fend them off, if applied more broadly. They are within the current laws, but they certainly don't advance the original purposes of those laws at all... (This, ironically, is one "business method" that I wish had been patented defensively... alas, it is probably too late...)
No, its not (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, can't disagree more.
Elvis's stuff should be PD. Not only because he's dead, but because he's been dead a long time and the bulk of his work was really done over 40 years ago.
What good does it serve to have Elivis's stuff under strict copyright? Is Elvis "incented" to create more stuff? Is Lisa-Marie "incented" to take up music as a career? Is she not rich enough? Should Elvis's music be an entitlement to any number of generations of presleys and music companies?
If Copyright lasted 14-21 years, it would all make sense. But when Copyright lasts 100 years and is backed up by encryption and criminal penalties for cracking that encryption, you don't have copyright, you have tools of social control.
That's why I copy old music freely without regard to copyright. The companies have said they don't give a shit about me. I'm simply replying in kind.
Re:IP is property and downloading is theft. (Score:1, Insightful)
Electricity is generated and can be metered. It's "physical-ness" may be a strange concept for for the purposes of this discussion it is a physical object. It's measurable, manufactured, and has market demand. It is possible to steal it. It makes perfect sense.
A song is not a scarce resource. It is no different than an idea or a funny joke your friend told you. If I replay a song, or re-tell a joke, nothing is "lost" or "stolen" that is measurable on a scarcity scale. Sure, there are ethical considerations to, say, claiming a song was created by yourself when in fact it wasn't, but those are ethical concerns and not physical ones. "Musicians" are no more scarce than poets, plumbers, or toilet cleaners. You choose to be a musician, the market doesn't choose it for you.
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bingo! Bands like mine have no chance at getting signed by a major label, because #1, we were not poured and shaped in the mold of Britney by the company brass, and #2, there are no more talent scouts. There are scouts, but they don't hear the music, they see T&A or hunk-meat prospects.
And LONG gone are the days when you could buy an album based on how cool its cover was, and have a good shot at liking the music. (But now I would go on a graphic design rant, which would be offtopic...)
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse me? Music is reckoned to be the oldest art form created by mankind. Money came along a lot later.
Remember, the "record labels" (look at the name) exist from the manufacture of LPs. Before LPs, they did not exist. Music still existed, composers wrote symphonies and bands played live. Don't tell me music doesn't want to be free. It's always been free; only in the last 50 years has it become a commodity. And the RIAA is going to great lengths to indoctrinate that belief into everyone.
Re:Insightful? Really Pathetic (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bad for economy too (Score:3, Insightful)
Unionization in the private sector has been steadily declining over the last 30 years, and minimum wages have been losing value relative to the CPI. So probably it's just that it's cheaper to manufacture your goods in countries where the government doesn't care how you treat workers, as long as they get tax revenue from it.
Re:bad for economy too (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure why. Your analogy about building materials doesn't hold up. Two companies can make 2x4's with very different processes, even different types of wood, and come out with a comparable product. A song (one worth covering, anyway) is a unique product. If you're a fabulous songwriter and a crappy singer, you should still be able to get *some* compensation for writing a great song, even if someone else performs it better than you do.
Granted, the current methods are overly cumbersome for most people to use, and the intimidation tactics used by lawyers for the IP owners are atrocious. But I don't agree that there's no justification for someone to hold a right on a song they wrote in the event someone else performs it.
Don't be an ass (Score:2, Insightful)
Fine.
But what do you own? You can't even tell us what "it" is, but you sure do think you own it.
If I listen to you music, and I hum it later on, is that wrong? What about if I hum it to my friends? Howzabout if I sing it with my guiter? To my friends? And their friends?
If you want to be an ass (and you seem hellbent on living down to the word), then you think copyright is about ownership of ideas. And its not.
Ideas are inherently free. If you think you own it, that just means you're fooling yourself.
Howabout music? Well, in the western tonalities, there are a finite amount of possible tunes. Here's a hint.... they've all been written. By your definition, nobody can write music because somebody already did it.
With ideas... the idea of pressing a button a web page that sells books.... is so laughable that only the US Patent Office would grant a legal protection to it.
But guess what... where the US Patent Office doesn't control it, they're ignoring it and laughing people who confuse temporary control of a thing with ownership.
Ownership of ideas is an illusion. I hope you feel comfy and warm in that illusion, but it is still an illusion.
Re:bad for economy too (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bad for economy too (Score:2, Insightful)
That wouldn't be possible. No technology that steeped in building tradition can be 'cornered' by a patent holder. Patents expire after awhile, ya know, and the technologies you described are ones the industry evolved around because they're not patented. Now, if an entity came out with a new fastening technology to replace nails, that let the builders save 20% on labor, all power to them in charging whatever they can get for their new patented product. Until it's patent expires, of course.
So you've thrown up a scarecrow arguement. Thank goodness we're not all ignorant crows.
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
There IS a fundamentally valid reason for both copyright and patents (and trademarks) to exist. But the scope has been blown way out of proportion by the power brokers, who are only in government to make a buck.
Pioneers vs Settlers vs Citizens (Score:3, Insightful)
The Internet is in the Settlement phase. What we're seeing now is a lot of bickering between vested interests, mostly over who gets what. Like when the railroads were buying up land. I don't think today's legislators are in a position to dictate restrictions that will affect people fifty years from now. But that's their job.
Legal minds seem to be waking up to the fact that information exchange, and to some extent information itself, is cheap now. Copyright artificially imposes value on it. We continue to maintain the copyright system because 1) it's traditional and 2) we're afraid not to.
Paradigms have short lifespans. Jack Valenti can whine all day about movies costing $50-60 million. But some of those movies would have cost a billion without digital technology. When he's able to make an equivalent movie for $1 million using synthesized sets, music and actors, he'll be as sympathetic to the complaints of all the defunct show business unions as someone downloading a LOTR torrent.
Everything looks different from every point of view, including those of one person at different points in time. Anyway, just a lot of blabbing, I don't really have anything constructive to suggest.
Re:If there were no copyright ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The "industry" is using their monopoly protection not to increase creative output, but to reduce it. There are hundreds of thousands of performing musicians in this country... how many are represented by "industry" labels? Almost none. Meanwhile the most prolific songwriter I know works at Guitar Center selling knockoff Fenders to teenagers in order to pay the rent.
Re:My two (US) cents (Score:2, Insightful)
Ivory Tower? Try the Mud Hut (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bad for economy too (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, consider the possibility that the same process was independently developed. Is it still "theft"? It doesn't map as easily onto property law now, does it? Yet independently developing a process which happens to be covered by a patent is still a breach of patent law.
Re:Ivory Tower? Try the Mud Hut (Score:3, Insightful)
But the driving force that dates back to the mud hut is the custom of turning the wilderness into the Royal Forest. Certain people have always been able to convince others to treat them like kings and queens, and coerce everybody else into following suit. As long as the public plays along, hunting becomes poaching and building upon history becomes infringement.
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A matter of simple economics (Score:2, Insightful)
However, to compare the downfall of industries that rely on intellectual property with the downfall of the car industry or the US steel industry is naive. With both of those industries, the ratio of physical-to-mental effort leaned decidedly towards the physical end. Copying a car or forged steel is not a trivial matter. The auto and steel industries faced cheaper competition from abroad, not wholesale misuse/theft by their customers.
Re:bad for economy too (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither do I. But I can't see either blaming current job loss in this country on unionization, since unionization is on the decline and the jobs that are going overseas these days are mostly non-union.